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Schwarzenegger admits to admiring Hitler’s speaking skills in new memoir

Arnold Schwarzenegger has long combated rumors alleging that he praised Adolf Hitler. Inhis new autobiography, "Total Recall," the former California governor admits to praising the Nazi leaders speaking style but says he always opposed Hitler's policies.

"I philosophized that only a few men are born to lead, while the rest of humanity is born to follow, and went from that into discussing history's great conquerors and dictators," Schwarzenegger writes in his book. "I admired Hitler's speaking ability, though not what he did with it."

Speculation and criticism over Schwarzenegger's 1977 seminal bodybuilding film, "Pumping Iron." The Hitler exchange was ultimately edited out of the film by director George Butler. While acknowledging the exchange, Schwarzenegger says it was essentially a ruse often employed by the actor, 65, to draw attention to himself.

"Coming up with outrageous things to say was easy because I was always thinking them to keep myself entertained," he writes in Total Recall.

Nonetheless, the Schwarzenegger camp takes issue with the way the quote has been framed by theNew York Daily News, in a story titled "Arnold Schwarzenegger admits he once expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler after publicly denying it for years."

"This is a totally misleading and irresponsible headline," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Ashley Robinson said in a statement provided to Yahoo News. "The governor wrote about something he said over 30 years ago that was reported countless times during his election for governor, that he had strong oratory skills that were abused for power. The headline is a shameless, reprehensible attempt by a tabloid to get attention and web traffic."

During Schwarzenegger's first run for governor of California in 2003, Butler quoted the actor in a book proposal, citing a transcript from "Pumping Iron," during which he asked Schwarzenegger to list his heroes.

"I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power," Schwarzenegger reportedly said at the time.

"Yes, in Germany they used power and authority but it was used in the wrong way," Schwarzenegger said, according to Butler. "But it was misused on the power. First, it started having, I mean, getting Germany out of the great recession and having everybody jobs and so on and then it was just misused. And they said, let's take this country, and so on. That's bad."

Schwarzenegger has been actively involved with pro-Jewish and pro-Israel groups over the years, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Ummm I AM German. So congratulations on your history lesson. You still know NOTHING about what the German people were like. They were scared into submission, if you disagreed with him or spoke out against him, awful things happened to you, your family, the people who employed you etc. The entire country was forced into poverty and starvation to show their strength. The people they should be able to count on, their police, their government, their politicians, were all playing a part. Propaganda was huge and many genuinely did not know what was really going on. They new it was bad, but not like that. And again, the ones who did could not speak out. Germans controlled Germany, Austria, Bosnia, not to mention the allied Italians. What were they supposed to do? He wooed them into power with his words of power and redemption and rebuilding, by the time it started to go bad, it was too late. There were resistances, people who laid down their lives to hide those sought out, spys, coups, what more did you honestly expect them to do with zero money, zero resources, and the only backing they could get hadn't made it to them yet? Again you know NOTHING.

Quoting lga1965:

wow, I did. I lived in Germany for a total of 7 years. I also went to the musuem at Dachau concentration camp, saw the ovens, saw the bunks, and heard a priest lecture and I saw the photos and learned a hell of a lot. Have YOU?Doctors helped use the Jews in medical experiments to earn extra money. ( Craniotomies with no anesthetic) ,seeing how long they could live naed in snow in the winter, among other things. Ordinary Doctors from town.People in homes near Dachau saw the smoke and knew, But they ignored it.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Wow.... Read a book.

Quoting lga1965:

The Germans were like amoral,unprincipled puppets. WHen he spoke about how they would prosper and how their country would be great and rich again, they listened because MONEY was all they cared about. And when people saw the concentration camps being built and saw the smoke from the crematoriums ( the ovens where Jews were burned) , they turned away and let it happen because of their alegiance to the puppet master who would bring them a better economy. Sick stuff.

I would say you don't know what ALL the German people were like, and are blinded by your allegiance to Germans because you are one.

Truth is, not only did many if not most Germans know what was going on, people around the world knew too, including in America. Hitler was not shy about his plans, and he deliberately targeted Jews (and Gypsies and a few other populations, but he decimated European Jewry) as the problem to be solved for Germans to be elevated to greatness after the horrific problems they had after WWI. It was easy to be fooled by someone who told them he had their answer, and they were fooled indeed.

I remember in one of my history classes, the professor said, if you wanted to destroy a population, what would be the first thing you would do? The answer was transportation. One of the first things that had to be done was get a good system of trains in order, to be able to move them from where they were to their "ultimate destinations". The camps were built, the crematories were built, the trains were built, and the Jews disappeared. In fact, in Austria today it is very difficult to find a Jew, and they had a nice population pre-WWII. Germany's Jews have not recovered either.

If we want to say Hitler was a great orator, we can. We can say he also had a nifty mustache, if we're looking for something nice to say about monsters.

One of the reasons many Germans don't talk about WWII is because they don't like that part of their history and they want to keep it in the past. That doesn't mean that many of their parents and grandparents didn't look the other way at the madness going on around them.

OK, it's silly to speculate when we weren't there, but eyewitness accounts of people actually being SENT to the camps say they didn't know what was going on, so how are you claiming the average German on the street knew? Sweden wanted to keep neutral so they let Germans march through Sweden to Norway - they didn't know either what was going on. It wasn't until the allies went in there after the war ended that the full extent of the holocaust was known, but Hitler was in power for 12 years. There wasn't even a war when he took control. How on EARTH is anyone claiming that the German people could have predicted all of what was about to happen before the war even began?

It's ludicrous to suggest it! Unless you are saying some people knew shady stuff was going on just months before the war ended. That is debatable but at least a little beleivable. But from the early 30s? And before Hitler took power he was rising to power - there is a lot more politically going on in that period than the final solution. Hitler's rise to power began 15 years before he took power in 1933. People here are being really very overly simplistic about the politics of Germany between the wars.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Ummm I AM German. So congratulations on your history lesson. You still know NOTHING about what the German people were like. They were scared into submission, if you disagreed with him or spoke out against him, awful things happened to you, your family, the people who employed you etc. The entire country was forced into poverty and starvation to show their strength. The people they should be able to count on, their police, their government, their politicians, were all playing a part. Propaganda was huge and many genuinely did not know what was really going on. They new it was bad, but not like that. And again, the ones who did could not speak out. Germans controlled Germany, Austria, Bosnia, not to mention the allied Italians. What were they supposed to do? He wooed them into power with his words of power and redemption and rebuilding, by the time it started to go bad, it was too late. There were resistances, people who laid down their lives to hide those sought out, spys, coups, what more did you honestly expect them to do with zero money, zero resources, and the only backing they could get hadn't made it to them yet? Again you know NOTHING.

Quoting lga1965:

wow, I did. I lived in Germany for a total of 7 years. I also went to the musuem at Dachau concentration camp, saw the ovens, saw the bunks, and heard a priest lecture and I saw the photos and learned a hell of a lot. Have YOU?Doctors helped use the Jews in medical experiments to earn extra money. ( Craniotomies with no anesthetic) ,seeing how long they could live naed in snow in the winter, among other things. Ordinary Doctors from town.People in homes near Dachau saw the smoke and knew, But they ignored it.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Wow.... Read a book.

Quoting lga1965:

The Germans were like amoral,unprincipled puppets. WHen he spoke about how they would prosper and how their country would be great and rich again, they listened because MONEY was all they cared about. And when people saw the concentration camps being built and saw the smoke from the crematoriums ( the ovens where Jews were burned) , they turned away and let it happen because of their alegiance to the puppet master who would bring them a better economy. Sick stuff.

I would say you don't know what ALL the German people were like, and are blinded by your allegiance to Germans because you are one.

Truth is, not only did many if not most Germans know what was going on, people around the world knew too, including in America. Hitler was not shy about his plans, and he deliberately targeted Jews (and Gypsies and a few other populations, but he decimated European Jewry) as the problem to be solved for Germans to be elevated to greatness after the horrific problems they had after WWI. It was easy to be fooled by someone who told them he had their answer, and they were fooled indeed.

I remember in one of my history classes, the professor said, if you wanted to destroy a population, what would be the first thing you would do? The answer was transportation. One of the first things that had to be done was get a good system of trains in order, to be able to move them from where they were to their "ultimate destinations". The camps were built, the crematories were built, the trains were built, and the Jews disappeared. In fact, in Austria today it is very difficult to find a Jew, and they had a nice population pre-WWII. Germany's Jews have not recovered either.

If we want to say Hitler was a great orator, we can. We can say he also had a nifty mustache, if we're looking for something nice to say about monsters.

One of the reasons many Germans don't talk about WWII is because they don't like that part of their history and they want to keep it in the past. That doesn't mean that many of their parents and grandparents didn't look the other way at the madness going on around them.

OK, it's silly to speculate when we weren't there, but eyewitness accounts of people actually being SENT to the camps say they didn't know what was going on, so how are you claiming the average German on the street knew? Sweden wanted to keep neutral so they let Germans march through Sweden to Norway - they didn't know either what was going on. It wasn't until the allies went in there after the war ended that the full extent of the holocaust was known, but Hitler was in power for 12 years. There wasn't even a war when he took control. How on EARTH is anyone claiming that the German people could have predicted all of what was about to happen before the war even began?

It's ludicrous to suggest it! Unless you are saying some people knew shady stuff was going on just months before the war ended. That is debatable but at least a little beleivable. But from the early 30s? And before Hitler took power he was rising to power - there is a lot more politically going on in that period than the final solution. Hitler's rise to power began 15 years before he took power in 1933. People here are being really very overly simplistic about the politics of Germany between the wars.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Ummm I AM German. So congratulations on your history lesson. You still know NOTHING about what the German people were like. They were scared into submission, if you disagreed with him or spoke out against him, awful things happened to you, your family, the people who employed you etc. The entire country was forced into poverty and starvation to show their strength. The people they should be able to count on, their police, their government, their politicians, were all playing a part. Propaganda was huge and many genuinely did not know what was really going on. They new it was bad, but not like that. And again, the ones who did could not speak out. Germans controlled Germany, Austria, Bosnia, not to mention the allied Italians. What were they supposed to do? He wooed them into power with his words of power and redemption and rebuilding, by the time it started to go bad, it was too late. There were resistances, people who laid down their lives to hide those sought out, spys, coups, what more did you honestly expect them to do with zero money, zero resources, and the only backing they could get hadn't made it to them yet? Again you know NOTHING.

Quoting lga1965:

wow, I did. I lived in Germany for a total of 7 years. I also went to the musuem at Dachau concentration camp, saw the ovens, saw the bunks, and heard a priest lecture and I saw the photos and learned a hell of a lot. Have YOU?Doctors helped use the Jews in medical experiments to earn extra money. ( Craniotomies with no anesthetic) ,seeing how long they could live naed in snow in the winter, among other things. Ordinary Doctors from town.People in homes near Dachau saw the smoke and knew, But they ignored it.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Wow.... Read a book.

Quoting lga1965:

The Germans were like amoral,unprincipled puppets. WHen he spoke about how they would prosper and how their country would be great and rich again, they listened because MONEY was all they cared about. And when people saw the concentration camps being built and saw the smoke from the crematoriums ( the ovens where Jews were burned) , they turned away and let it happen because of their alegiance to the puppet master who would bring them a better economy. Sick stuff.

I would say you don't know what ALL the German people were like, and are blinded by your allegiance to Germans because you are one.

Truth is, not only did many if not most Germans know what was going on, people around the world knew too, including in America. Hitler was not shy about his plans, and he deliberately targeted Jews (and Gypsies and a few other populations, but he decimated European Jewry) as the problem to be solved for Germans to be elevated to greatness after the horrific problems they had after WWI. It was easy to be fooled by someone who told them he had their answer, and they were fooled indeed.

I remember in one of my history classes, the professor said, if you wanted to destroy a population, what would be the first thing you would do? The answer was transportation. One of the first things that had to be done was get a good system of trains in order, to be able to move them from where they were to their "ultimate destinations". The camps were built, the crematories were built, the trains were built, and the Jews disappeared. In fact, in Austria today it is very difficult to find a Jew, and they had a nice population pre-WWII. Germany's Jews have not recovered either.

If we want to say Hitler was a great orator, we can. We can say he also had a nifty mustache, if we're looking for something nice to say about monsters.

One of the reasons many Germans don't talk about WWII is because they don't like that part of their history and they want to keep it in the past. That doesn't mean that many of their parents and grandparents didn't look the other way at the madness going on around them.

Hitler wasn't shy about his intentions regarding the "Jewish problem". He outlined them in his book and spoke about them. I don't know about the "average" German, but certainly many Germans did know. I have family that lives in Denmark (I am Jewish and my family emigrated there from Poland and Holland because Denmark was more tolerant of Jews) and I have family that died in the camps and others the lived. My major in college was history and social science, btw. I have read and studied. It is easier to think people didn't know what was going on than that they did. Many did and looked the other way.

It is extremely offensive to say Germany knew what was happening, and if Germany knew, then everyone knew, and you write that America knew too. I'm not American, but it's offensive to all the allied countries and the non-allied countries as well to say what you are saying.

People in retrospect claim that they knew, but it is BS when you have so many Jews claiming they got on the trains with full optimism. You can always arrogantly claim after the fact "well I knew everything" - Well why the ^&$^$&^ didn't you say something then?

Hitler had some bad ideas certainly and they were forming 1933-1941. He made some threats as early as 1939, but even he himself didn't put things into motion that early - they were simply threats. Things sped up dramatically toward the end of the war when he knew there was no way out, but back up and look at his rise to power. Between 1918 and 1933 he had to win over the people, and after 1933 he had to keep power. True, the German's were pretty angry at the rest of Europe but they didn't see him as the worse psychopath in the history of the world! To say that anyone saw that before 1939 is just going beyond the pale.

The point is he won the people over on charisma and skill and eventually took power in 1933. That was a very complicated feat, if I remember my history correctly, but it is an attest to his skill and pursuasion, not the stupidity of the Germans.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting JuneH:

OK, it's silly to speculate when we weren't there, but eyewitness accounts of people actually being SENT to the camps say they didn't know what was going on, so how are you claiming the average German on the street knew? Sweden wanted to keep neutral so they let Germans march through Sweden to Norway - they didn't know either what was going on. It wasn't until the allies went in there after the war ended that the full extent of the holocaust was known, but Hitler was in power for 12 years. There wasn't even a war when he took control. How on EARTH is anyone claiming that the German people could have predicted all of what was about to happen before the war even began?

It's ludicrous to suggest it! Unless you are saying some people knew shady stuff was going on just months before the war ended. That is debatable but at least a little beleivable. But from the early 30s? And before Hitler took power he was rising to power - there is a lot more politically going on in that period than the final solution. Hitler's rise to power began 15 years before he took power in 1933. People here are being really very overly simplistic about the politics of Germany between the wars.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Ummm I AM German. So congratulations on your history lesson. You still know NOTHING about what the German people were like. They were scared into submission, if you disagreed with him or spoke out against him, awful things happened to you, your family, the people who employed you etc. The entire country was forced into poverty and starvation to show their strength. The people they should be able to count on, their police, their government, their politicians, were all playing a part. Propaganda was huge and many genuinely did not know what was really going on. They new it was bad, but not like that. And again, the ones who did could not speak out. Germans controlled Germany, Austria, Bosnia, not to mention the allied Italians. What were they supposed to do? He wooed them into power with his words of power and redemption and rebuilding, by the time it started to go bad, it was too late. There were resistances, people who laid down their lives to hide those sought out, spys, coups, what more did you honestly expect them to do with zero money, zero resources, and the only backing they could get hadn't made it to them yet? Again you know NOTHING.

Quoting lga1965:

wow, I did. I lived in Germany for a total of 7 years. I also went to the musuem at Dachau concentration camp, saw the ovens, saw the bunks, and heard a priest lecture and I saw the photos and learned a hell of a lot. Have YOU?Doctors helped use the Jews in medical experiments to earn extra money. ( Craniotomies with no anesthetic) ,seeing how long they could live naed in snow in the winter, among other things. Ordinary Doctors from town.People in homes near Dachau saw the smoke and knew, But they ignored it.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Wow.... Read a book.

Quoting lga1965:

The Germans were like amoral,unprincipled puppets. WHen he spoke about how they would prosper and how their country would be great and rich again, they listened because MONEY was all they cared about. And when people saw the concentration camps being built and saw the smoke from the crematoriums ( the ovens where Jews were burned) , they turned away and let it happen because of their alegiance to the puppet master who would bring them a better economy. Sick stuff.

I would say you don't know what ALL the German people were like, and are blinded by your allegiance to Germans because you are one.

Truth is, not only did many if not most Germans know what was going on, people around the world knew too, including in America. Hitler was not shy about his plans, and he deliberately targeted Jews (and Gypsies and a few other populations, but he decimated European Jewry) as the problem to be solved for Germans to be elevated to greatness after the horrific problems they had after WWI. It was easy to be fooled by someone who told them he had their answer, and they were fooled indeed.

I remember in one of my history classes, the professor said, if you wanted to destroy a population, what would be the first thing you would do? The answer was transportation. One of the first things that had to be done was get a good system of trains in order, to be able to move them from where they were to their "ultimate destinations". The camps were built, the crematories were built, the trains were built, and the Jews disappeared. In fact, in Austria today it is very difficult to find a Jew, and they had a nice population pre-WWII. Germany's Jews have not recovered either.

If we want to say Hitler was a great orator, we can. We can say he also had a nifty mustache, if we're looking for something nice to say about monsters.

One of the reasons many Germans don't talk about WWII is because they don't like that part of their history and they want to keep it in the past. That doesn't mean that many of their parents and grandparents didn't look the other way at the madness going on around them.

Hitler wasn't shy about his intentions regarding the "Jewish problem". He outlined them in his book and spoke about them. I don't know about the "average" German, but certainly many Germans did know. I have family that lives in Denmark (I am Jewish and my family emigrated there from Poland and Holland because Denmark was more tolerant of Jews) and I have family that died in the camps and others the lived. My major in college was history and social science, btw. I have read and studied. It is easier to think people didn't know what was going on than that they did. Many did and looked the other way.

It is extremely offensive to say Germany knew what was happening, and if Germany knew, then everyone knew, and you write that America knew too. I'm not American, but it's offensive to all the allied countries and the non-allied countries as well to say what you are saying.

People in retrospect claim that they knew, but it is BS when you have so many Jews claiming they got on the trains with full optimism. You can always arrogantly claim after the fact "well I knew everything" - Well why the ^&$^$&^ didn't you say something then?

Hitler had some bad ideas certainly and they were forming 1933-1941. He made some threats as early as 1939, but even he himself didn't put things into motion that early - they were simply threats. Things sped up dramatically toward the end of the war when he knew there was no way out, but back up and look at his rise to power. Between 1918 and 1933 he had to win over the people, and after 1933 he had to keep power. True, the German's were pretty angry at the rest of Europe but they didn't see him as the worse psychopath in the history of the world! To say that anyone saw that before 1939 is just going beyond the pale.

The point is he won the people over on charisma and skill and eventually took power in 1933. That was a very complicated feat, if I remember my history correctly, but it is an attest to his skill and pursuasion, not the stupidity of the Germans.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting JuneH:

OK, it's silly to speculate when we weren't there, but eyewitness accounts of people actually being SENT to the camps say they didn't know what was going on, so how are you claiming the average German on the street knew? Sweden wanted to keep neutral so they let Germans march through Sweden to Norway - they didn't know either what was going on. It wasn't until the allies went in there after the war ended that the full extent of the holocaust was known, but Hitler was in power for 12 years. There wasn't even a war when he took control. How on EARTH is anyone claiming that the German people could have predicted all of what was about to happen before the war even began?

It's ludicrous to suggest it! Unless you are saying some people knew shady stuff was going on just months before the war ended. That is debatable but at least a little beleivable. But from the early 30s? And before Hitler took power he was rising to power - there is a lot more politically going on in that period than the final solution. Hitler's rise to power began 15 years before he took power in 1933. People here are being really very overly simplistic about the politics of Germany between the wars.

Quoting romalove:

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Ummm I AM German. So congratulations on your history lesson. You still know NOTHING about what the German people were like. They were scared into submission, if you disagreed with him or spoke out against him, awful things happened to you, your family, the people who employed you etc. The entire country was forced into poverty and starvation to show their strength. The people they should be able to count on, their police, their government, their politicians, were all playing a part. Propaganda was huge and many genuinely did not know what was really going on. They new it was bad, but not like that. And again, the ones who did could not speak out. Germans controlled Germany, Austria, Bosnia, not to mention the allied Italians. What were they supposed to do? He wooed them into power with his words of power and redemption and rebuilding, by the time it started to go bad, it was too late. There were resistances, people who laid down their lives to hide those sought out, spys, coups, what more did you honestly expect them to do with zero money, zero resources, and the only backing they could get hadn't made it to them yet? Again you know NOTHING.

Quoting lga1965:

wow, I did. I lived in Germany for a total of 7 years. I also went to the musuem at Dachau concentration camp, saw the ovens, saw the bunks, and heard a priest lecture and I saw the photos and learned a hell of a lot. Have YOU?Doctors helped use the Jews in medical experiments to earn extra money. ( Craniotomies with no anesthetic) ,seeing how long they could live naed in snow in the winter, among other things. Ordinary Doctors from town.People in homes near Dachau saw the smoke and knew, But they ignored it.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

Wow.... Read a book.

Quoting lga1965:

The Germans were like amoral,unprincipled puppets. WHen he spoke about how they would prosper and how their country would be great and rich again, they listened because MONEY was all they cared about. And when people saw the concentration camps being built and saw the smoke from the crematoriums ( the ovens where Jews were burned) , they turned away and let it happen because of their alegiance to the puppet master who would bring them a better economy. Sick stuff.

I would say you don't know what ALL the German people were like, and are blinded by your allegiance to Germans because you are one.

Truth is, not only did many if not most Germans know what was going on, people around the world knew too, including in America. Hitler was not shy about his plans, and he deliberately targeted Jews (and Gypsies and a few other populations, but he decimated European Jewry) as the problem to be solved for Germans to be elevated to greatness after the horrific problems they had after WWI. It was easy to be fooled by someone who told them he had their answer, and they were fooled indeed.

I remember in one of my history classes, the professor said, if you wanted to destroy a population, what would be the first thing you would do? The answer was transportation. One of the first things that had to be done was get a good system of trains in order, to be able to move them from where they were to their "ultimate destinations". The camps were built, the crematories were built, the trains were built, and the Jews disappeared. In fact, in Austria today it is very difficult to find a Jew, and they had a nice population pre-WWII. Germany's Jews have not recovered either.

If we want to say Hitler was a great orator, we can. We can say he also had a nifty mustache, if we're looking for something nice to say about monsters.

One of the reasons many Germans don't talk about WWII is because they don't like that part of their history and they want to keep it in the past. That doesn't mean that many of their parents and grandparents didn't look the other way at the madness going on around them.

Hitler wasn't shy about his intentions regarding the "Jewish problem". He outlined them in his book and spoke about them. I don't know about the "average" German, but certainly many Germans did know. I have family that lives in Denmark (I am Jewish and my family emigrated there from Poland and Holland because Denmark was more tolerant of Jews) and I have family that died in the camps and others the lived. My major in college was history and social science, btw. I have read and studied. It is easier to think people didn't know what was going on than that they did. Many did and looked the other way.

My husband was stationed in Germany. He saw much of the same that you saw but he can still admit that Hitler was an intelligent man, powerful speaker, and a strong leader. None of those things make him a good person but they are still true.

Quoting lga1965:

Oh for goodness sake. Study more? way to make yourself feel really smart and superior. Don't use me to boost your ego.

I hated Hitler and couldn't watch the newsreels and films of him which is why I don't personally "see" him as a great speaker. He looked angry and ugly to me and yet he was able to hypnotize the citizens and many women even fell in love with him. @@ Yes, they did.But I know he was able to convince everyone he was right and everyone believed in him because of his speeches.Students of that era say he was great, Arnold says he was. I don't have to agree just to look like I have "studied". Because I have studied.

As I have already written here, we were stationed in Germany twice in the 70's and 80's with the USAF. We went to Dachau, we read the literature, I read the book "The Diary Of Anne Frank" right after it was published in the early 1950's when I was 11. Based on this reply of yours here, I bet you weren't reading anything of importance when you were 11.

If all you can contribute here is "study more", then you haven't contributed at all. It would have been nice if you read all the rest of my replies here .....then you might have learned a lot about this subject

Quoting Mommy_of_Riley:

Study more....

Quoting lga1965:

Hitler's voice, posture and words were NOT characteristic of a "great speaker". I don't know how the German people could stand listening to him. I have heard him.He was insanely corrupt and his voice reflected it.

I don't care if you think what I said is offensive. It isn't as offensive as millions of people carted on trains to be tortured and killed and others pretending they had no knowledge.

Facts is facts.

There's a come-back for me! Yikes! I'm really sorry I did that.

So I can't really remember what you said but I'm going to guess you said something about having a social science degree blah blah. That's great. Since you didn't say your degree was in German 20th century history, it's also irrelevant. As irrelevant as my two graduate drgrees in social sciences, so we get knowhere there - except that we should both be able to argue logically on this topic.

Both of us have as our strongest evidence the eye-witness reports of people at the time. You claim everyone knew, and I claim not everyone knew. As evidence I put forward the fact that people on their way to the camps have been known to claim they knew nothing at the time. You claim, I suppose, that some people, as I understand it (not clear on your sources) said they knew at the time what was happening.

So which evidence can exist in the face of supposition 1) that not everyone knew, and which evidence can exist in the face of supposition 2) that everyone knew what was going on? Well people, could claim that they knew what was going on - including your father, and that does not at all prove the point that everyone knew and turned a blind eye. This is just those facts you were telling me about, although it's annoying when facts get in the way of a good story isn't it?

But facts being, as they are, facts, we still have to look at what they say. If some people, including all the major governments on both sides and a great many people involved claim they had no idea what was going on, then can both suppositions above be true? Well no - not the second. Kind of a logical impossibility.

And it started with his ability to pursuade. Many in the Nazi party believed in his cause as a result.

Quoting sweet-a-kins:

he didn't do that through awesome speaking skills. He did it through intimidation brute force and fear. The country was starving and poor...he took advantage of that.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

The man got an entire country and numerous others to follow him blindly and commit attrocious acts based souly on his words. if that's not a great speaker, what is?

Quoting lga1965:

Hitler's voice, posture and words were NOT characteristic of a "great speaker". I don't know how the German people could stand listening to him. I have heard him.He was insanely corrupt and his voice reflected it.

And it started with his ability to pursuade. Many in the Nazi party believed in his cause as a result.

Quoting sweet-a-kins:

he didn't do that through awesome speaking skills. He did it through intimidation brute force and fear. The country was starving and poor...he took advantage of that.

Quoting Lizard_Lina:

The man got an entire country and numerous others to follow him blindly and commit attrocious acts based souly on his words. if that's not a great speaker, what is?

Quoting lga1965:

Hitler's voice, posture and words were NOT characteristic of a "great speaker". I don't know how the German people could stand listening to him. I have heard him.He was insanely corrupt and his voice reflected it.

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